𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 ✔︎

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫

As soon as I was put into a foster home, my eyebrows shot in surprise to see someone I already knew.

"Liv!" I gasped.

She turned to look at me."Zoe? What are you doing here?"

"That's the same question I was about to ask you."

She grabbed a strand of her blonde hair and combed it with her fingers, her head down. "I've been here for seven years. Ever since it was too dangerous to live with people that spend ninety nine percent of their time at a pub and come home violent."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why are you here?"

"My mum suddenly lost her memory. And I have no one to stay with so I was brought here."

A tear dropped from Liv's eyes. She quickly wiped it away and gave me a hug. "Welcome to the family," she said. "There will be some people here that you won't like and some that you will. Nina is nice, the foster person. Me and you will walk to school everyday and come back together, okay? Here, follow me, I'll show you the spare bedroom."

"Thanks," I said when we reached my room. Rudely, I shut the door in her face, sat on the white bed and cried and cried.

After crying a river of tears, I violently and angrily squeezed all my clothes in the small wooden wardrobe, packed all my things in the giant chest of drawers and cleaned the dirty mirror. I was so tired after that, my body collapsed onto the floor and my breathing became quicker and harder.

Soon, I swiftly sat up when there was a sudden knock on my door. I sat there in silence, not mumbling a word. The knocking continued and after some time, the door slowly creaked open.

"Ugh they better install locks soon," I grumbled, expecting to see an angry Nina when looking up.

But it was not an angry Nina. In fact, it was not Nina at all. It was a tall, beautiful girl in jeans in a white top. She had light brown hair, tanned skin, honey-coloured eyes and a silver necklace around her neck.

"Your room is the only room without a lock," she said. She spoke quickly like a street girl but with a posh air.

"Oh. Well. What do you want?" I asked.

"Nina said that I, you know, need to show you around and make it easy for you."

"You don't have to. I've got Liv. I've known her for years," I explained.

"Well I'm not Liv. I'm Layla. And It's always me when there's a new kid."

"Okay. Show me around then," I commanded, getting up.

Layla looked at me in a bewildered way. "You're not like the others," she said.

"How?"

"Well first of all, you're the first person that's joined with a strange personality. You're stubborn, and I can tell by your character that you're spoiled. Everyone else was shy and polite when they first came." She said all this so confidently and ruthlessly, I gave her an ugly scowl.

"Don't say that about me. You, yourself are extremely proud and big-headed. Shut up or get away. I don't need you to show me around."

"Suit yourself. You'll regret it. By the way, everyone's at the dinner table waiting for you."

"I'm not hungry."

She stood there staring at me for some time with her shiny, honey-coloured eyes. I got annoyed by this, stood up and shut the door in her face. I was not expecting her to open it again but that was what she decided to do. I tried shutting it back and we both pushed with all our might at either side of the door. She was stronger and shoved the door so hard, I fell on my back. I was so embarrassed, I felt my face including my neck turning a radish-red.

Layla must have felt bad because she helped me up and apologised. Then she gave me such a lovely smile, the only thing I felt like I was able to do was smile back.

My shoulder was still hurting from the hit of the door, so I turned my back on her, checked, and found a pinkish-purple bruise.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing."

She gave me another warm smile. "Come on, let's go downstairs."

When I got to the table, it was so embarrassing to see all fifteen children waiting for me to eat. Everyone had their own plate of spaghetti bolognese, a bowl of strawberry trifle and a cup of lemonade.

Every meal, I was to sit at the same place. It's at the end of the dinner table opposite Layla and in between Liv and another girl called Violet.

That night, I couldn't get to sleep because I couldn't stop thoughts crashing my brain, endlessly throughout the night. It was not until three in the morning when my eyes shut and I slept, dreamlessly.